


not ready to leave you, no matter how contagious

by contrarian



Category: Ray Donovan (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, s5 ep1 tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 22:24:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contrarian/pseuds/contrarian
Summary: Lena and Ray, and that scene at the beginning of season five.





	not ready to leave you, no matter how contagious

**Author's Note:**

> Drabble I just dug up that I never got around to expanding, and probably won’t now. It’s something! Enjoy:)

At this point, she knew him.

She had seen Ray at so many lows- she knew what it looked like when his face, normally stone or steely, sagged a little, his eyes drifted vacantly, the way he leaned back as if he was being crushed.

It really was the little things, with Ray.

And Lena- well, there was a reason she was so faithful. If she hadn’t met him, she would have burned up in her anger. Watching him had made her that you could stay angry, that you could survive damaged, that there were people who would have your back. Even if he hadn’t meant to teach her that, she’d learned, and she owed him anyway. She owed him for the first time he bailed her out, when she was only professionally acquainted with him; she didn’t think she’d ever stop owing him for that. She didn’t owe him for the work- she could always find the work- but for the busiest day of her life on the day of her father’s funeral. For the couch in his city apartment after a bad break up, and not because she couldn’t afford a motel. 

For the lack of judgement. For all the times she hadn’t said what she needed, and he had known.

And for all Ray’s faults, he had a line. That he’d draw. Repeatedly, emphatically, and sometimes with a baseball bat. Lena had had jobs she wasn’t proud of, before Ray and for him, but all things considered, After Ray had been a much better time for job satisfaction. Yeah, the amount of crazy shit that had gone on, especially more recently, she’d felt like throwing the towel in. Somehow, she never had. She was like Ray, in that sense and others. She knew the value of loyalty.

So when she finally tracked him down on Staten Island after days of nothing and yet another actual murder, she could have screamed in frustration when he got in Winslow’s car. And when he’d walked out and come to talk to her, the feeling only deepened with dread.

She’d seen him bloody, out for the count, but the sheer exhaustion in him- and he could barely meet her eyes. That odd flicker, where he’d catch her eye and look away. And all he could say to her was “go home,” the bastard. Lena knew better than to be hurt, but it hurt. She thought of a thousand things she could have thrown in his face, and she let him walk away.

Lena knew Ray. She knew that man would do whatever he’d do. But jesus, after all this time, was she wrong to expect his trust? Didn’t she have a right to be worried, she who’d stood by him for all these years, even now with the mafia, the killings, the Avi saga, whatever the fuck?

Lena watched him, she really looked at him. The way he hadn’t really met her eyes, the curve of his shoulders. He was so ashamed. And Christ she was angry, but she was going to be there for him. She’d go back to LA and he’d call and she’d come, just like she always had. Fucking bastard.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback appreciated, as always x


End file.
